


Lifeline

by burnt_cinnamon



Category: Desert Peach
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Major Injuries mentioned but not described in detail, World War II, still bitter about the ending, they deserved a softer epilogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:46:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29781852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burnt_cinnamon/pseuds/burnt_cinnamon
Summary: Lost and adrift at the end of the war, Udo reaches for an anchor.
Relationships: Pfirsich Rommel & Udo Schmidt
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Lifeline

“Don’t think of us too much,” his father had said. Ever _Herr Hauptmann_ – straight-backed and stern, dispensing advice like marching orders. _Einmal Soldat, immer Soldat_. Udo had slouched resentfully beside his brothers in their shiny new uniforms, lined up in the hallway with stiff-starched collars and polished boots pinching at their toes. “Concentrate on the job at hand. If you think of home too often, you’ll drown.”

Udo’s eyes drifting (as they so often did) to that empty space on the doorpost where the wood was a slightly darker shade than the rest. Like a tongue probing the gap where a tooth should be. 

But the old man was wrong about that; as he had been about so much else. Udo needs an anchor. Something to reorient him to the shore when the riptides threaten to sweep him out to sea. In Africa, he had clung to the memory of his family like a lifeline – counting cousins off on his fingers one by one, picturing his grandparents’ faces with care. He had thought, often, of his mother.

The way things are currently going, though, there aren’t going to be any _~~G~~_ _ ~~ülphsteins~~_ Schmidts to come back to. When he tries to imagine home now, he can only conjure up a blackened, bombed-out shell. Like so many other houses they’ve passed.  
  


* * *  
  


Udo asks, every chance he gets. He doesn’t care if the men are sick of hearing it or if it makes Winzig narrow his eyes – like he thinks Udo’s doing it just to spite him. Whenever they come across a hospital or they get a new arrival in the unit, freshly bandaged and returned to the frontlines, he asks: did they happen to have a certain officer on their ward? Tall and blond and blue-eyed? With impeccable manners and two busted knees?

It had almost become a ritual, repeated without hope or expectation, by the time his efforts eventually bore fruit. His persistence finally paid off last month when a young nurse brightened in response to his questions, her eyes lighting up in recognition. Oh, the one they said was Rommel’s brother? Yes, the handsome colonel, she remembered him. He had been reserved but very polite.

“I pitied him, to tell you the truth,” she confided, shaking her head. Dark curls spilling out from under a white cap. “Apparently he’d been in and out of hospital for over a year, and never a word of complaint. All those operations. The doctors said he might never walk again, poor man.”

By that point Udo had barely been listening. _Alive_ , he was thinking, _wounded but alive_. And he hadn’t lost his legs, after all.

“He’s alright,” he repeated, stupidly – more to himself than to her. “You’re sure, you saw him. He’s alright.” Giddy with relief, grinning like an idiot.

Even Winzig had softened into a smile; at least, before he’d caught Udo’s eye and scowled to hide it. “Careful, Schmidt,” he sniffed, thin lips curling back into a sneer. “Keep pining after him like that, and people might start wondering about _you_.”

If this had still been 1941, Udo would have retaliated with some choice insults of his own. Might even have taken a swing at him, rank protocol be damned. But they’re not in Africa anymore, and Udo’s too goddamn tired to keep swallowing the bait every time Winzig gets out his fishhooks. So he had tamped down the surge of irritation and confined himself to a glare, forcing his hands to uncurl at his sides. “He was _my_ officer. S’only natural to ask.”

“Hah! Some officer,” Winzig retorted. “He’s going to sleep through the whole war at this rate.”

And Udo had been suddenly, fiercely glad. _Na gut_ , he had thought. _Nur zu! Sleep until all of this is over._

Like _Dornröschen_ in her ivory tower, encircled by thorns. Safe and sound asleep. He doesn’t belong out here with the rest of them, in the mud and blood and madness.  
  


* * *  
  


When the war is over, Udo will find him again. He will bring flowers, to brighten up the ward; to remind them both of better times. ( _Somewhere_ , he thinks, _there must still be flowers growing_.) And the Colonel will wake to a world at peace and he will smile kindly at Udo and everything will be just as it was back in Africa. As if these intervening years were nothing but a long and horrible nightmare that melted away with the sunrise.

And _Der Alte_ will no longer be his officer, but Udo’s sure he can find ways of making himself useful. If nothing else, he still brews a mean cup of tea. And if the Colonel’s knees are as bad as the nurse said…but he refuses to follow that train of thought any further. It’s impossible to picture the athletic man he once knew hobbled and hamstrung, shuffling about like an invalid with a cane or stuck crippled in a chair. _Gott bewahre_. Other men, yes – after five years of war, after being shot in the face, Udo has no illusions about the mess bullets and bombs and artillery shells can make – but not him. Not _Herr Oberst._ He’ll be fine; he has to be. The doctors will fix his legs and maybe one of them could do something about Udo’s eye. Yes. And then they’ll…

Up ahead, Winzig gives the order to move out.

Udo takes a deep breath, gritting his teeth against dizziness and pain and exhaustion, and thinks: _when the war is over_.

 _Halte durch.  
_ _Noch etwas länger.  
_ _When the war is over._

Like a lost child in the woods dropping breadcrumbs, or Theseus and his ball of twine. A slender thread to lead him out of the labyrinth and back into daylight.

For now, he just holds on tight, and steps again into the dark.


End file.
